Board Rule 8-11.	Mediation is private, confidential, and privileged.  A trained, unbiased facilitator, who assists the parties in clarifying and understanding their different points of view, identifying common ground, generating and evaluating alternatives, and reaching a mutually acceptable resolution, conducts it.  Mediator notes are confidential and must be destroyed after mediation.  The mediator cannot be contacted for information or called as a witness in other later proceedings.  Communication during mediation is not discoverable or admissible, except for information that is required to be reported under a specific law.  The costs associated with the use of a mediator are to be borne equally by the parties, unless otherwise agreed to between the parties prior to the commencement of the mediation process.  Departments shall notify participants to a grievance that mediation is an available form of alternate dispute resolution.  Settlement communications with any of the Board’s settlement facilitators, the State Employee Mediation Program and the State Ombuds Office are all considered confidential mediation communications covered by this Board Rule.

Board Rule 8-48.	Within 15 days of the receipt of notice of the filing of a petition for hearing, the parties shall provide to each other copies of all documents or information relied upon by that party in reaching, in the complainant’s case, the decision to grieve the respondent’s action(s) and to appeal the respondent’s final agency decision, and, in the respondent’s case, the final agency decision that constitutes the subject of the petition for hearing.  If either party asserts a privilege regarding such documents or information, it shall specify the nature of the privilege and provide the other party a privilege log that describes each document by title, author, date, subject matter, and legal basis for preserving the privileged or confidential nature of the documents or information withheld.